In 2016 Sherri Papini was allegedly kidnapped. Three weeks after said “abduction” she was found over 140 miles from her home in a very bad condition.
“She told police she had been abducted and branded by two women who kept her chained in a closet,” CNN reported. “She gave an elaborate story of her kidnapping and treatment at the hands of the supposed assailants, whom she said wore masks, spoke Spanish, held her at gunpoint and branded her with a heated tool.”
Now, six years later, the mother of two has been found guilty of faking her own kidnapping. With no real reasoning for this hoax it begs the question of why she would do this. Did she realize how harmful this was to real victims of abuse and abduction?
And why did this case garner so much attention? For one thing, Papini is a white mother of two, and it is evident that crimes against white women are taken more seriously and given the proper investigation. Crimes against Black women are disproportionately reported on, according to NPR, “Tens of thousands of Black girls and women go missing every year. Last year, that figure was nearly 100,000. Yet their cases hardly ever grab national headlines.”
When women, especially white women take their racial privilege for granted, by making up false accusations and claims, it makes it more difficult for not just other white women but even more difficult for women of color to get the justice they deserve.
Unfortunately this is a dangerous world for all women as they experience...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...